Bees with Alzheimer’s – the price of pesticides

Pat Thomas on why me must continue to fight against excessive pesticide use, for the sake of both humans and bees.......

Our bees have Alzheimer’s. And it’s our fault.

Imagine what it must be like to forget your way home. To not be able to communicate effectively with others, especially those you live with. To forget the faces, colours, sounds and smells that have been the landmarks in your ‘map’ of life.

These things are part of the experience of Alzheimer’s, a disease that is becoming increasingly common in our ageing population; but also one whose prevalence is rising faster than the population is ageing.

‘Losing’ your mind is NOT a normal part of ageing; something else is causing it. Two recent studies into the effects of neonicotinoid pesticides in bees only strengthen my belief that the cause is environmental.

Both studies found that exposure to common pesticides, neonics and organophosphates, makes bees confused and forgetful. The pesticide exposure disrupts healthy brain activity altering the bees’ behaviour and leaving them unable to learn.

More distressing, and poignant, is the finding that pesticide exposure renders the bees unable to remember the scent of nectar-rich flowers – vital in a bee’s search of food – and to relay that information back to the hive. Remembering is essential to survival not just to that single bee but to the whole hive.

It’s against this broader backdrop that we must view the EU’s recent failure to ban neonicotinoid pesticides.

The European Commission recently called for a temporary moratorium on the use of neonicotinoids after a report by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded that they posed a high acute risk to pollinators.

In the midst of public outcry, the EU issued a statement saying it ‘remains committed to ambitious and proportionate legislative measures’, and, if the EU members fail to reach agreement in the next two months the ban will go through anyway.

Here’s hoping.

Neal’s Yard Remedies’ Bee Lovely campaign was one of the first anti-neonic campaigns in the UK. They took the cause up on behalf of bees, long before many environmental groups did, and committed money from the sales of their Bee Lovely products to groups who are on the frontline helping to protect them.

This year, Neal's Yard Remedies aim to support numerous bee friendly causes by providing a way for them to connect with each other, share best practice, and generally scale up the collective impact that these projects are having to help save the bees across the UK.

Neal's Yard Remedies will be keeping the pressure up and urge Ecologist readers to do the same. Beyond their beauty – and value to our economy and food system – our bees are also an early warning system. When we find the compassion and the will to save them, we are also saving ourselves.